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Per HON Code principles 4 - Attribution - and 5 - Justifiability, this is why we think we know everything.
A lot of our information comes from direct personal experience, along with that of our friends’, and that of the many people who posted all the incarnations of the Crazy Meds forum, and to various online support groups - what’s known in the trade as anecdotal evidence. We also sit on our asses all day long and do a bunch of research. We find a study that is of interest and we put a link to it or an article about it within the page on the med in question. So there are many specific articles and studies that we’ve referenced throughout this site, either by direct link to the source or by quaint footnotes. However there are a few works that we’ve built upon as a foundation, and that we also reference to check on certain things. This isn’t a static list. Paper is by far the superior medium, expensive though it may be.
Here are the key books, papers, and sites that comprise the foundation of what we know about neuropsychopharmacology.
Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology: Neuroscientific Basis and Practical Applications (Essential Psychopharmacology Series) Third edition by Stephen M. Stahl © 2008 Published by Cambridge University Press.
Primer of Drug Action 12th edition by Robert M. Julien Ph.D, Claire D. Advokat, Joseph Comaty © 2011 Published by Worth Publishers.
The Prescriber’s Guide (Essential Psychopharmacology Series) Third edition by Stephen Stahl © 2009 Published by Cambridge University Press.
Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs 18th edition Adil S. Virani, K. Bezchlibnyk-Butler, J. Jeffries © 2009 Published by Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.
Mosby’s Drug Consult 2007 (Generic Prescription Physician’s Reference Book Series) © 2007 An imprint of Elsevier. Also the 2004 edition, but only on pages that haven’t been fully updated yet.
Evidence-based Psychopharmacology Dan Stein, Bernard Lerer, Stephen Stahl © 2005 Published by Cambridge University Press.
Instant Psychopharmacology 2nd Edition Ronald J. Diamond MD © 2002. Published by W.W. Norton
The Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs Edward Drummond, MD © 2000. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
PDR: Physicians’ Desk Reference 2010 64th edition back through to 53rd edition of 1999. Old copies of the PDR come in handy for PI sheets that are no longer available and difficult to find, as well as to track the changes in both indications and adverse effects.
The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide David J. Miklowitz, Ph.D
Handbook of Affective Disorders edited by Eugene S. Paykel, MD FRCPsych
Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You…That You Need to Know John McManamy
Clinical Neurology for Psychiatrists David Myland Kaufman MD © 2001 W.B. Saunders Company. An imprint of Elsevier
The New Chemotherapy in Mental Illness edited by Hirsch L. Gordon MD, Ph.D, FAPA © 1958 Philosophical Library, Inc. Published by Philosophical Library
Neurotransmitter.net Tons of information and research on psychiatric and neurological conditions, the drugs that treat them, and the rating scales used to measure the efficacy of said drugs. All neatly indexed and categorized to make it easy to make sense of a bunch of diverse information. I had no idea how much research was being done on hangovers until I hit this site. I knew doctors liked to party (considering that my stepfather is a vascular surgeon I had a first-hand look at how much doctors liked to party), but who knew they were getting grant money for it? A key site for patients, students and, most importantly, doctors of all stripes, shapes and sizes.
Sheldon Preskorn’s Applied Clinical Psychopharmacology Dr. Preskorn has authored over 300 scientific and professional articles, and many of them are available at this site, which is full of useful psychopharmacological data involving drug-drug interactions, methods of actions, clinical efficacies, pharmacokinetics and more. Dr. Preskorn has received continuous grant funding since 1978 for studies in the areas of psychopharmacology, neuroscience, and psychiatric illnesses.
PubMed You want studies, they got studies. Over 14 million citations covering 50 years of research. You’ll find the majority of my online cites reference a Pub Med URL. Especially helpful is PubMed Central, the repository of full-text articles and online books that are available free of charge. These are your tax dollars at work, people, make good use of them.
PLoS Medicine The Public Library of Science is another great repository of free, peer-reviewed articles.
The PDSP Ki database All Ki values, all the time. These are the raw numbers used to determine the potency of certain aspects of medications, such as neurotransmitter reuptake inhibition.
Genetic Basis of Drug Metabolism
Is low antiepileptic drug dose effective in long-term seizure-free patients? Tânia A.M.O. Cardoso; Fernando Cendes; Carlos A.M. Guerreiro Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria vol.61 no.3A Sept. 2003
Monoamine depletion by reuptake inhibitors Marty Hinz; Alvin Stein; Thomas Uncini Drug, Healthcare and Patient Safety, October 2011 - Dove Press
And to give you an idea of what the Crazy Meds library looks like:
The Crazy Meds Library’s “top tier” books.
An older, clearer shot of the “second tier” books.
And a shot of some of the old medical texts I collect. That really battered one is a version of the PDR from the late 19th century. You think your side effects are bad today? Little wonder why many epileptics chose the accepted the alternative therapy of the day: bland foods, lukewarm baths, isolation from society, and celibacy1 instead of the available meds. Just like the ketogenic diet it supposedly worked better the younger one began. Now how many monks and nuns had religious visions?
1 Wait a minute, I'm on a highly restrictive diet, I live on the fringes of civilization and I'll not interact with another person - even over teh interwebs - for weeks at a time, I'll soak in the tub for a couple of hours, and I haven't been laid in… what year is this? W. was still President and the economy hadn't tanked the last time I had any fun, and I haven't been in anything close to a relationship with regular congress since 2004. I can tell you, it doesn't work all that well. If my Topamax levels get hosed by a funky generic I'll have an aura or wake up with a seizure hangover.
Page created by: Jerod Poore. Date created: 31 January 2011 Last edited by:
Page design and explanatory material copyright © 2004 - 2011 Jerod Poore. All rights reserved.
Almost all of the material on this site is copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets - those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about - and any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That’s usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that’s OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I’m usually cool with it.
All rights reserved. No warranty is expressed or implied in this information. Consult one or more doctors and/or pharmacists before taking, or changing how you take any neurological and/or psychiatric medication. Your mileage may vary. What happened to us won’t necessarily happen to you.
The information on Crazy Meds pertains to and is intended for adults. While some information about children and adolescents is occasionally presented (e.g. US FDA approvals), pediatric-specific data such as dosages, side effects, off-label applications, etc. are rarely included in the articles on drugs or discussed on the forum. If you are looking for information regarding meds for children you’ll have to go somewhere else.
Know your sources!
Nobody on this site is a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist. We don’t portray them either here or on TV. Only doctors can diagnose and treat an illness. Some doctors tend to get pissed off by patients who know too much about medications, so tread lightly when and where appropriate. Diagnosing yourself from a website is like defending yourself in court, you suddenly have a fool for a doctor. Don’t be a cyberchondriac, thinking you have every disease you see a website about, or that you’ll get every side effect from every medication*. Self-prescribing is as dangerous as buying meds from fraudulent online pharmacies that promise you medications without prescriptions.
All information on this site has been obtained through our personal experience and the experiences family, friends, what people have reported on various reputable sites all over teh intergoogles, the medications’ product information / summary of product characteristic (PI/SPC) sheets, and from sources that are referenced throughout the site. As such the information presented here is not intended as a substitute for real medical advice from your real doctor, just a compliment to it. You should never, ever, replace what a real doctor tells you with something from a website on the Internet. The farthest you should ever take it is getting a second opinion from another real doctor. Educate yourself - always read the PI/SPC sheet or patient information leaflet (PIL) that comes with your medications and never ever throw them away.
Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to. We like them, or they’re paid advertisements, or they’re something else we think you should read to help you make an informed decision about a particular med. Sometimes they’re more than one of those things. But what’s on those sites is their business, not ours.
Very little information about visitors to this site is collected or saved. From time to time I look at search terms used and which pages they bring up in an effort to make the information I present more relevant. And the country of origin, just because I’m geeky like that. That’s about it. Depending on how you feel about Schrodinger, our privacy policy should either assuage or exacerbate your paranoia.
All brand names of the drugs listed in this site are the trademarks of the companies named on the PI/SPC sheet associated with the medication, sometimes on the pages about the drugs, even though those companies may have been acquired by other companies who may or may not be listed in this site by the time you read this. Or the rights to the drug were sold to another company. And any or all of the companies involved may have changed their names.
Crazy Meds is optimized for the browser you’re not using on the platform you wish you had. Between you and me, it all looks a lot cleaner using Firefox.
No neurologists, psychiatrists, therapists or pharmacists were harmed in the production of this website. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited. Contains nuts. Certain restrictions may apply. All data are subject to availability. Not available on all mobile devices or in all dimensions of reality.
*While there are plenty of books to help you with hypochondria, for some reason there’s not much in the way of websites. Then again, staying off of the Internet is a large part of curing/managing the disorder.
‘Everything is true, nothing is permitted.’ - Jerod Poore
